Video: The Little UAV That's A Ball To Fly (Literally!)

 This little RC flying machine is getting some big attention here lately... the video above has had over 1,300,000 views in just over 2 weeks. It is pretty impressive how it mixes such stable vertical flying with a rapid transition to a more normal horizontal flight.

 The smallish and very well rounded UAV was developed by the Research Department at Japan's Ministry of Defense. On one hand, it's not really much different than the impressive Dark Deltoid posted back in February (video), but the addition of gyros coupled to the servos gives some added position stability, and the round shape does give it a rather unique option to roll along the ground. Not sure I'd say it was bargain for the claimed $1,400 to build, but I'll admit that I've never seen any flying machine blow the top off a spherical storage box and then launch vertically out of it : )

 I did a moment of research and found that it was demonstrated a while back as seen in the video below that was uploaded almost exactly a year ago. Maybe, just maybe, we'll see a $60 version of this roundy show up just in time for Christmas... if so, you can count me in!